


To Break Nature's Rule

by ValirysReinhald



Series: A Life by the Sea [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Family, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:29:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29861577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValirysReinhald/pseuds/ValirysReinhald
Summary: (Part Three of A Life by the Sea) It's been three months after the incident at the Department of Experimental Magics and Artifacts, Harry turns twenty-eight next Tuesday, and Andromeda is bringing Teddy over tomorrow morning to spend the week with his godfather. There's a party at the Burrow Sunday evening, and Fleur can't stop looking at where Charles Bassett's office used to be.
Relationships: Fleur Delacour/Harry Potter
Series: A Life by the Sea [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2195415
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

Silence filled the Friday air. The quiet was disturbed only by the rustling of papers, the scratching of quills, and the gentle chime of the grandfather clock in the corner ringing out midday. It was a tired silence, worn down by the tension of the previous three months the Department of Experimental Magics and Artefacts had finally settled into a sort of quiet haze. It wasn’t a pleasant silence, nor was it uncomfortable, instead it settled like a weight on the shoulders of people long since too tired to lift their heads. For Fleur, the weight was not on her shoulders but deep within her, the fuel for a fire smouldering dormant deep within her.

“Hello, Mrs Potter.”

Not all was lost though, there was still one bright spot left.

“Hello, Ms Beaucourt.”

A smile was already beginning to tug on Fleur’s cheeks as she looked up from the parchment on her desk, a report on the failure of the latest prototype of the self-regulating cauldron, and cast her gaze towards her friend. 

“I have another report from Laurens and Fournier for you, and I do apologize for the contents.”

Fleur reached out to take the report and eyed the suspiciously thick looking ream of parchment.

“They’ve got it in their heads that they can use a derivation of spatial manipulation enchantments to create a non-physical cauldron capable of suspending a potion in inert space.”

“Wait, would that not expose the potion directly to the heat source?”

“Yes, yes it would. Although I don’t think that has occurred to either Laurens or Fournier yet, and I don’t think anyone has had the heart to tell them.”

“You mean you did not have the heart to tell them, and decided to foist it off onto me instead?”

“That’s correct.”

Fleur just shook her head and pulled the stack of parchment over into her workspace, pausing to look back up at the sound of Aimée’s footsteps walking away, the very edge of a smirk still visible on her lips as she disappeared through the doors of the records room, causing Fleur to smile in turn. It had been horrific when Charles had activated his arithmantic array a little more than three months ago, and it had left a mark on everyone. He had nearly killed the entire french ministry of magic, and the realization of that had affected everyone profoundly. Fleur had not escaped the impact, and neither had Aimée, but it was different for them. Fleur had fought in a war and seen such horrors many times over even if she could not forgive those who perpetrated them, Aimée had not. She had been younger, less experienced, and in many ways more naive than the rest of her peers, it should have hit all the harder for her. It was frankly incredible what had happened instead. 

Aimée had seemed to blossom, she was certainly quieter than before, but rather than being subdued it was as if she had become so focused that she lacked the time to make noise. She had a gleam in her eye now, a hunger to understand magic that was unlike anything she had displayed previously. She had marvelled at the wonder of magic to be sure, but now it was as if she had bent her entire being into truly understanding it. She had gained a respect for magic and its power that sparked something far greater than mere curiosity, it had sparked conviction.

Fleur leaned back in her chair, a relatively new piece of furniture the ministry had decided to use as the first step on the road to modernization. For wizards, this meant using revolving office chairs instead of straight-backed wooden ones from the 17th century. 

Taking advantage of her chair’s incredibly modern ability to spin, it couldn’t move, wheels were evidently a step too far, Fleur took a moment to look around the place where she spent each and every day. Muted silver-blue wallpaper, rich dark wood panelling, a pale ceiling. Less than ten minutes ago it had seemed almost oppressive, now it merely seemed as if it was holding its breath, waiting.

Shaking off her musings, Fleur stood. She took a moment to write and enchant a note into the shape of a swallow and sent it on it’s way to Laurens and Fournier, better to puncture their hopes quickly than to drag it out over paragraphs of formal language. Gathering up the contents of her work case, Fleur walked briskly towards the door into the corridor outside their department as she made to leave early. She lingered for a moment with one hand resting on the door handle. Her gaze was drawn, as it always had been for the past few months, to the silent and empty office where Charles Basset had once worked, where he had all but lived, and where he had engineered his own downfall. She simply stood there a moment, the set of her brow hardening unconsciously as she looked at the place where Charles had wrought his reckless plans. The moment passed, Fleur tore her gaze away from the darkened room, and she strode into the corridor and out of the Department of Experimental Magics and Artifacts.

\----------------------

With a barely perceptible snap, Fleur appeared along the gently curving path to their house. Pausing a moment to check on the olive grove, they were coming along nicely, Fleur walked slowly up the path to their door. As she reached up to knock, however, a faint sound of laughter reached her ears. Fleur turned to face the breeze and walked to the edge of the front porch, running her hand along the railing as she listened and waited to hear it again, setting her work case down as she did so.

The sound, this time an indignant shout, came from the direction of the small orchard off to the east. Stepping back from the railing and walking back off the porch, Fleur set off in the direction of the sounds. Fleur let out her left hand as she walked, sliding her fingers along the trellises of vines as she passed. She walked slowly and took in the sight and scents around her as she did so. The midday sun lit up the gardens in a riot of colour. Rich red tomatoes, deep purple grapes, yellow squash and green peppers, and the flowers of a hundred different herbs. A smile grew on Fleur’s face as she tilted back her head, closed her eyes for a moment, and drank in the scent of the air. The sea breeze mixed with the gardens to create a fragrance unlike any other, and indescribable. At least not in French. Harry would smile cheekily and declare that a single English word could encapsulate the sensation in its entirety. He’d declared it to smell “fresh”, and smiled proudly at his linguistic achievement. Fleur had hit him.

Fleur shook her head ruefully at the memory, then looked up again as the sound of life grew louder.

“Can’t catch me, Jamie!”

“That’s not fair, you cheated!”

The voices were coming from just around a large boulder jutting out of the ground. Harry had said it looked like a dragon fang, and that was probably true if he wasn’t wearing his glasses, and it was nighttime, and foggy, and also a different rock, but the first time James had seen it he’d giggled and declared it to be a slug trying very hard to stand up. 

“Settle down you two. Your mother will be home soon and I don’t think you want her to see you in time-out when she gets here.”

Fleur rounded the boulder, deftly navigating the short, steep slope down to the other side and spoke loudly, “What is it they do not want me to see?” All three of them seemed to freeze, and for a moment Fleur was treated to the comical sight of James halfway through trying to climb up Harry’s back to try and get at Isabelle, who was securely perched on top of Harry’s shoulders and frozen mid mock, pointing straight at James and laughing. Harry was the best of all though, with two children using him as a climbing gym and halfway through pruning an apple tree, he had twisted around as best he could to look where her voice had come from, and the ridiculousness of his pose was only compounded by the mess of leaves and twigs irrevocably tangled in his hair.

“Maman!” 

The children’s shout of joy seemed like an almost physical force as they launched towards her, literally in Isabelle’s case as the little girl jumped straight off of Harry’s shoulders and into Fleur’s arms.

Fleur let out a slight grunt as the girl impacted her chest, “My my Isabelle, you’re getting so big. Soon I shall not be able to lift you!”

Isabelle let out a giggle, “Don’t be silly Maman, you and Papa can do anything.”

Fleur shook her head, a smile playing across her lips. “If only that were true, little one.”

She peered around Isabelle and down at James, who was busily hugging Fleur around her waist. “And what have you been up to?”

“I was helping Papa!”

“Really?”

“Uh huh, we were picking Apples!”

“I was pruning the apple trees, James was chasing Isabelle around the orchard, up my right side, and back down my left.”

Fleur looked over at Harry’s words, drinking in the laughter on Harry’s face as he spoke.

“Still helping.”

Fleur arched an eyebrow and looked down at her son, “Oh, and how is that?”

“I was keeping Isabelle out of Papa’s way,” James said brightly.  
“Hey!” said Isabelle, glaring down at James, “I was helping too.”

James scoffed, “You can’t even reach the leaves.”

“Well, you can’t either!”

“Yeah, but I don’t need to.” James said, his voice condescending, “I was doing more important things.”

“Like what?”

“Like keeping you out of the way.”

Isabelle huffed, crossing her arms she set her face in a resolute pout as she turned back to Fleur. “James is being mean.”

Harry spoke up then, “Come now, you two, be nice or you won’t get any dessert tonight.”

Both of them whirled round to look at Harry, abject horror on their faces. 

“But the pie,” James said, “if we don’t eat it, it’ll go bad!”

“No it won’t,” Harry said.

“But who’ll eat it?” asked Isabelle.

“We will,” answered Fleur.

The two children spun back to face her, their expressions scandalized. 

“But we won’t get any!” cried James.

“Nope,” Fleur said, adding a distinct pop onto the end of the word, “Unless…”

The two children leaned forward eagerly, “Unless what?” asked Isabelle, profound hope etched into her features.

“Unless you two go back to the house right now and get washed up for lunch,” Fleur said, “and no fighting.”

Fleur set down Isabelle as she spoke and the two ran back up the path to the house, James’ voice sounding back around the boulder as he shouted, “Last one to lunch is a Nargle!” and Isabelle’s response drifting back towards them, “No fair, James, you’ve longer legs!”

Harry’s chuckle brought her back to look at him, “Pie wins again I see.”

“But of course. It is, after all, a formidable motivator.”

The two of them set off up the path after their children, conversing as they moved.

“How was your day?” asked Harry.

For a moment Fleur’s thoughts drifted to Charles' empty office, but in truth, it had nothing to do with the day’s work.

“It was not bad, a tad boring to be sure, but good.”

“Boring? That can only mean paperwork.” Harry grimaced at the word.

Fleur let out a light laugh, “It is not as bad as you think Harry.” Then, at his pointed look, “Or, at least, not as soul-crushing.”

Harry shook his head ruefully, “I’m all for pushing the boundaries of magic and remaking the laws of reality, I just wish it didn’t involve so much writing.”

“Only because your handwriting makes hen scratches a favourable comparison.”

Harry gave her a mock glare before continuing, “How is Aimée doing?”

“Better than I could have ever expected,” answered Fleur, “I honestly could not have anticipated how much she would grow.”

“She took your words to heart then.”

“Certainly, but it is more than that.”

Fleur slowed then, Harry turning to look at her as she did so.

“She is something special, I think she may grow to surpass me soon.”

Harry quirked an eyebrow, “Does that bother you?”

Fleur laughed, “Not in the slightest Harry. I am glad to see her grow, to see the world forgiving the past and moving on.”

Harry let out a chuckle, “A far cry from the Fleur of yesteryear.”

Fleur smiled, “Indeed, and I am better for it.”

“That you are, my dear, that you are.”

They settled into a companionable silence for a time and did not speak again until they were passing through the Rosemary patch.

“When will Teddy and Andromeda be arriving?” 

“Nine o’clock tomorrow,” answered Harry, “at the international portkey office in Paris, arrival zone seven.”

“It will be quite good to see them.”

Harry’s beaming smile was response enough, but he spoke anyway, “Yeah, yeah it will. A whole week with Teddy.” Harry’s voice gained a faraway quality as he spoke, nearly lost in thoughts of the time he would have with his godson.

“And of course you will have fixed the shower before they arrive.”

“Right, right. Remind me what the problem is again?”

Fleur arched an eyebrow delicately, “The problem, my dearest Harry, is that it emits clear liquid fire if one stays in it for more than fifteen minutes.”

Harry chuckled in response, “I still don’t get how you can work in the Department of Experimental Magics and Artifacts, and not be able to fix a shower.”

Fleur pouted. Harry was right of course, her inability to perform maintenance on even basic household enchantments was entirely incongruous with her profession, and had caused Mrs Weasley no end of despair when she had heard that her “sixth son” was marrying Fleur. She had spent fruitless days trying to teach Fleur the household magics that she had spent her life perfecting, and Fleur had spent fruitless days trying to learn them. The two of them had eventually been forced to conclude she lacked the “temperament”, as Molly had put it, for such magic. Which was of course when Harry had given the spell a try, on a whim, and performed it perfectly on his first attempt. Fleur had refused to kiss him for an entire day, but as it turned out his patience was the greater of the two, and Fleur had gotten tired of not kissing him before Harry tired of smugly animating sponges to clean plates.

“Of course, you could also just not spend more than fifteen minutes in the shower.”

Fleur gave him a blank look.

“I’ll have a look at it after lunch.”

“Good, we would not want you to miss out on your time with Teddy due to poor plumbing,” Fleur replied.

As Fleur said this she was stepping into the front door of their home. The sound of splashing water drew her attention and Fleur gave Harry a sidelong glance. 

“I do not suppose you left a pot on to boil?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then that would be James and Isabelle getting… clean.”

“Yeah I s’pose it would, shall I go get them or will you?”

“I will get them, you go get lunch ready.”

With that Fleur turned and headed down the hall to the bathroom where the sound of giggling could be made out among the splashes. She came to the door of the bathroom and pushed it open revealing that Isabelle and James had filled up the sink with soapy water and were “washing up”. In reality, James had made himself a long beard of bubbles and Isabelle had crafted a magnificently bubbly handlebar moustache twice as wide as her head. The two turned at the opening of the door and stared comically up at her. Fleur leaned against the doorframe, crossed her arms, and arched her left eyebrow without saying a word.

“We’re not fighting,” James said hurriedly.

“Cleaning,” agreed Isabelle, the curls of her bubble moustache bobbing along with the movement.

Fleur shook her head with a sigh, “Come on you two, get washed up so we can eat.”

“What about Pie?” Asked James eagerly.

“Are you two clean?”

“Very clean,” responded James, his foamy beard separating from his face slightly as he nodded.

“And did you fight?”

“No fighting,” said Isabelle firmly and shaking her head, the tips of her moustache lagging behind the movement like the limbs of an octopus.

“And are you ready to eat?”

“Yeah!” James replied.

Fleur raised her other eyebrow and glanced down at his beard, which had been stealthily elongating as James spoke and by now had reached his knees. James glanced down, somehow he seemed to have forgotten about it, and blushed.

“Er, almost.”

Isabelle giggled as Fleur shook her head and drew her wand from her sleeve. With a quick swish and deft flick the soapy constructions lifted off of the two children’s faces, well, Isabelle's face and James’ belly, and floated over to the sink before dropping into the bowl. Another flick and the two were dry once more and Fleur stepped back, gesturing them wordlessly out of the bathroom and towards the dining room. Isabelle set off with a squeal, as fast as her little legs could carry her, and James tore after her. 

“Walk!” Fleur called after them. Pointless it may be, Fleur still said it every time. She followed them after a moment and found James sulking in his chair as Isabelle stuck her tongue out at him while Harry was focusing on the sandwich laden tray in his hands. 

“Isabelle, do not stick your tongue out at your brother.”

Harry glanced over his shoulder at Isabelle as the little girl looked wide-eyed over at Fleur, “But James is a nargle, he was all slow.”

“I am not, I got to the house first!”

“But we were racing to lunch.”

“She’s got you there, James,” Harry said as he was setting a plate down in front of him.

Fleur sat down in her usual place as Isabelle stuck her tongue back out at James. “Isabelle, what did I say about sticking your tongue out at James.” 

Isabelle pouted and looked down just as James let out a laugh.

“Now James, you’ve got to lose gracefully,” said Harry as he sat down, “It’s unbecoming of a proper nargle such as yourself to be a sore loser.”

James gaped up at Harry as Isabelle brightened, then scowled down at his sandwich in defeat, his young face doing its best impression of a pretzel before he sighed and lifted it up to tear off a bite. Fleur lifted her own sandwich and took a bite, looking over at Harry appreciatively at the flavour.

“Toasted bread with a pesto aioli, sliced grilled chicken breast, fresh basil, tomato slices, and slices of fresh mozzarella,” Harry answered her unspoken question. Isabelle, who had been poking dubiously at the green paste on one of her pieces of bread, brightened considerably and reassembled her sandwich, happily taking a bite.

“The pesto is a bit salty,” Fleur looked round to where James had spoken, taking in the thoughtful expression on his face as he continued, “and it could do with some pepper.”

Harry frowned and took a bite, “I think you may be right, James.” he said after a moment’s consideration. 

Fleur just shook her head and went back to eating, utterly baffled by the seven-and-three-quarter-year-old’s sensitivity to the food’s seasoning. He certainly had not inherited his burgeoning culinary acumen from her. She was capable of feeding herself comfortably, but as Aimée had once said, Harry was a world-class cook. 

“Papa, when will Teddy be here?” Fleur looked over at James’ question, silently marvelling with a drop of concern at the boy’s ability to seemingly inhale food without need of either air or chewing. 

Isabelle made a noise of eagerness as Harry answered, “Nine o’clock, so we’ll have to be up early or we won’t be there when they arrive, and we don’t want to keep Grandma Tonks waiting.”

James shuddered in agreement, and Fleur could empathize. Andromeda Tonks was a formidable woman and had been rather protective of Harry ever since Sirius had introduced him to the Tonks as being related. She still remembered the distinctly unnerving experience of meeting the woman for the first time, she had been entirely friendly right up until Harry was out of sight and earshot, at which point she had pinned Fleur to the spot with a piercing gaze and asked some very pointed questions about her intentions with Andromeda’s youngest and most respectable cousin. Family was incredibly important to the woman.

“And after that, we go birthday shopping right?” asked Isabelle.

“After that, we go shopping and get the things we need for Papa’s birthday.” Fleur confirmed. Isabelle nodded brightly, although James seemed less enthused. Unless it involved toys, food, or quidditch gear, then James did not particularly enjoy shopping.

“Cheer up James,” said Harry, “Teddy will be there being bored along with us.” Harry had once been similarly unenthused about shopping, although now he mostly put it on as a way to have fun with James. It worked, as James brightened considerably and the table was drawn into Harry and James’ ever more outlandish descriptions of just how spectacularly bored the two of them and Teddy would be, the lively anticipation consuming the rest of the meal with increasingly animated descriptions of exactly little they would get to do.

\----------------------

Fleur’s work case was missing. She had searched the dining room, a common place for it, as well as the study and kitchen. At present, she was checking the parlour but to no avail. Fleur threw her hands up in exasperation as she confirmed that her case was not, in fact, hidden under the sofa. Hearing the sound of James’ bedroom door click closed down the hall Fleur called out to Harry, “Harry, have you seen my work case?”

“Hmm?” came Harry’s less than helpful reply, “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“My work case,” Fleur asked again, twisting to look at him as he entered the parlour, “Have you seen it anywhere?”

“I think you may have left it on the front porch.”

Fleur glanced out the front window with a grimace. It was long past sundown and bound to be chilly, even in the summer the temperature would drop significantly along the shore as they were.

Sensing her trepidation Harry spoke again, “You can just summon it you know.”

Fleur gave him a flat look, “I do not relish the thought of letting in the cold.” She rose as she spoke and drew her wand. A single flick opened the window, letting a blast of cool sea air in the process, and another wave brought her work case flying in from where she had left it earlier that day. Harry waved his wand at the window, which shut with a soft snap, and Fleur let out an involuntary shiver at the remnants of the cold breeze. 

“Come on, Fleur, let’s get to bed.”

Fleur nodded and the two walked down the hallway to their room, the door of which was slightly ajar. Harry softly pushed it open and proceeded into the room, Fleur following. What greeted them was the sight of little Isabelle, clad in fluffy white and blue pajamas, kneeling on their bed and fiddling with a little wooden box of mints.

“And what are you doing out of bed?” asked Harry curiously.

Isabelle started and looked quickly round, relaxing at the sight of them. “My breath smelled bad, so I came to get one of Maman’s mints,” she said brightly. “But I couldn’t get the box open.”

On closer inspection the box was indeed filled with the rosewater mints that Gabrielle had given to Fleur a few weeks ago. Fleur strode over to where Isabelle sat, placing her work case down on the floor as she did so, and sat down beside her. She reached out with one hand, a smile crossing her face as Isabelle eagerly handed her the box. “Alright Isabelle, one mint and then back off to bed with you.”

“Yes, Maman!” Isabelle replied eagerly. 

Fleur tapped the box with the tip of her wand and watched as it clicked open, with one hand she reached in and brought out a single mint, handing it to Isabelle. She received the mint as if it were a gift from the heavens, then smiled brightly up at Fleur and jumped up to hug her.

“Goodnight Maman, love you.”

“I love you too,” Fleur replied, setting the box aside to engulf her daughter in a warm embrace. She released her after a moment and watched as she ran over to Harry to give him a goodnight hug as well, “Goodnight Papa, I love you!”

Harry paused in the middle of taking off his shoes and kneeled down to hug her back, “I love you too sweetheart, pleasant dreams.”

Fleur began to get undressed herself as the patter of little feet faded and the sound of Isabelle’s door closing filled rang out in the still air. Harry flicked his wand and the door to their room closed with a soft click and a gentle creak of hinges. Fleur finished stripping off her day’s clothes as Harry placed his wand on the headboard, and began pulling on a simple nightdress. Within a minute Fleur was ready for bed, and she slipped under the covers waiting for Harry to finish cleaning his glasses. That done, he climbed in with her and the two lay side by side, faces tilted towards each other.

For a moment they simply lay there, drinking in the appearance of the other’s face. Fleur’s eyes traced over Harry’s features as his did hers, following long since memorized contours and lines illuminated in the soft orange light of the headboard lamp.

“Harry, what do we have left to do?”

Harry frowned at her in thought, then answered musingly. “Well, tomorrow we have to pick up Andromeda and Teddy, and go shopping.”

“What else?” Fleur prompted.

Confusion was written on Harry’s face, but he humoured her. “Well, after that there’s not much tomorrow, but on Sunday we’re heading over to the Place Cachée branch of Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes.”

“Anything more?” 

“Well, there’s dinner with the Weasley’s after…”

“And that is it?”

“I assume I’m forgetting something.”

“You still have not fixed the shower.”

Fleur’s clear laughter rang out in the stillness as Harry slumped back into the pillows with a groan.


	2. Chapter 2

Darkness filled the room. Fleur tilted her head to look over at the clock and saw that it was not yet six in the morning, just like the last few times she checked. With an inaudible sigh, Fleur leaned back against the pillows and stared back up at the ceiling. It was dark, just like it had been five minutes ago, just like it had been half an hour ago when she had woken. Why could she not sleep? She wasn’t particularly tired, but neither was she fully awake. Unconsciousness just seemed to elude her. Glancing over at the still sleeping Harry, Fleur began to carefully move out from under the warm covers and silently stood. If she could not sleep then there was little point in staying. With soft motions and softer sound, Fleur set about getting ready for the day as quietly as she could. It was nearly six thirty when Harry found her. She was in the kitchen waiting for a pot of coffee to finish brewing when she heard his footsteps coming down the stairs.

“You’re up early.”

The questioning look that accompanied Harry’s words was enough for Fleur to know what he wanted. 

“I could not sleep.”

Harry turned to face her, his expression unreadable for an instant, the face she had seen whenever he was putting together pieces of a picture and did not like what he saw. 

“There’s something bothering you Fleur, what is it?” Despite the bluntness of his phrasing, Harry’s voice and face had both shifted to show his concern. 

“You’ve been having trouble sleeping for over a month now, don’t think I haven’t noticed, and it’s been getting worse too. You wake up tired more often than not, and to top it all off you actually drank some of my tea when we ran out of coffee last week.”

His last words brought a wry smile to Fleur’s lips, she had indeed been so desperate for caffeine that day that she brewed herself the “Beverage of Britain.” The smile fell from her lips and Fleur let out a sigh before she spoke. “I do not know what is keeping me up Harry, nor do I know why.”

Harry’s gaze pierced her then, his eyes boring into her and rooting her to the spot as he focused every ounce of his attention on her. 

“Ok, but we need to find out. This isn’t good for you Fleur, you need your rest.”

Fleur nodded at his words then turned back to the coffee pot, now finished brewing. “Until then, coffee it is.” Harry let out a slight chuckle behind her and a moment later he was beside her, her favourite mug in his hand. Fleur poured herself a cup of the steaming black liquid and took a moment to breathe in the rich, warm aroma that never failed to remind her of autumn. Harry set about making his own cup of tea and Fleur sat back by the kitchen table, the mug resting on the rough hewn-wooden surface as she did so. She stared down at the mug, the thin ceramic shaped like a tulip, the white glazed surface painted with a scene of a dancing pair in warm brown-watercolour tones, the handle shaped like woven petals. The mug was enchanted to be durable despite its thin construction, as well as to always keep its contents warm, and as such she had no fear that her coffee would cool as she stared into the mug’s depths, lost in thought.

\----------------------

They were going to be on time, despite Isabelle losing her shoes, despite James misplacing his hat, despite Isabelle losing her shoes again, they were going to be on time. The International Portkey Office was a small subsection of the Department of Magical Transportation, yet it was also one of the most frequently used. Silver walls surrounded an open receiving area, many doors leading off into the arrival zones off to the side. Fleur had some experience with the place, she had passed through on several occasions over the course of her life, and as such, she knew where she was going when they arrived and walked through the ministry building at a pace just barely below a jog. The route she took them by was not exactly conventional, and it led them through several areas that non-employees shouldn’t be in strictly speaking, but it made sure they would be on time. The clock chimed the hour just as Fleur and her family strode into arrival zone seven, and they were just in time to see the whirling lights of an international portkey depositing its passengers back into reality a moment later.

There were perhaps fifteen people clutching the sturdy rope that had served as their transport from Britain, and it took her a moment to spot Andromeda and Teddy at the rear of the group. A broad smile broke over Fleur’s face as she saw Teddy spot them, the little nine-year-old letting out a shout and running towards them. Harry knelt down just in time to catch Teddy in his arms, and the two remained there in a tight embrace as Andromeda walked over. Fleur looked up to see her and took in the tired but warm expression on her face.

“Greetings Fleur, how are you?”

“I am well, how was your journey?”

“It wasn’t awful, but so many people on a portkey at the same time makes it a bit choppy no matter what.” At that Andromeda turned to glance over at the rest of the arrivals, Fleur followed her gaze and took note of the mixture of French and British wizards and witches.

“Hello, Andromeda.” 

The two of them turned back to Harry at the sound of his voice, Andromeda responding warmly to Harry’s greeting. “Hello Harry, how are you dear?” Andromeda said, moving forward to wrap him in a quick hug as she did so.

“I’m doing well, although we really should get going. We don’t want to be in the way of the next group.”

Andromeda nodded at that and three adults turned to look at the children, all of whom were already enraptured in conversation. Well, Teddy and James were swapping stories, Isabelle was excitedly bobbing along to their words and adding sound effects to whatever story was being told at the time. A small smile played across Fleur’s lips and she walked forward, placing a hand on Teddy and James’ shoulders. Teddy looked up at her at that, a beaming smile covering his features.

“Aunt Fleur!” Teddy wrapped her waist with a quick hug to go with his words, and Fleur let out a soft chuckle. 

“Hello to you as well Teddy. Now come on, all three of you, it’s time to head out.”

“Where are we heading?” It was Teddy that asked the question, but it was James that provided the answer. His groan and expression of despair was enough to clue Teddy into their destination, and he looked up at Fleur with horror on his face.

“We aren’t going shopping, are we, Aunt Fleur?” The pleading expression was only enhanced by his eyes growing larger and becoming reflective as glass, Teddy’s metamorphing making him even more adorable than before. 

“I’m afraid so Teddy.” It was Harry that answered him, “But don’t worry, I’m sure we can find something for us to do.”

Harry was as good as his word, and ten minutes later found them walking down the Le Chemin de Traverse, the French equivalent to Diagon Alley, Following around little Isabelle who Harry had placed in charge of directing them about their errands. Harry, Teddy, and James filled out a sort of honour guard behind the almost six-year-old little girl. It was quite a comical sight, especially as Isabelle would frequently have to stop, reread the list of things they had to buy, reread the map of the district and then reread the list again. That she refused to stay still only added to the effect as the trio of boys would be seen resolutely following behind her in order of ascending height as Isabelle would take two steps forward, stop, turn around, take another two steps, and then realize she’d been right the first time and head back the other way. It was rather like watching a flock of strange ducks. Fleur and Andromeda would follow more sedately behind them, watching Harry’s and the children’s antics with smiles on their faces. 

“Fleur, are you alright?”

Fleur tore her gaze away from the crowd, she could have sworn she had seen a familiar head of close-cropped curly blond hair, but when she looked again the back of Charles Basset’s head was nowhere to be seen.

“What?” Fleur asked, inelegantly.

Andromeda arched a thin black eyebrow, “You are scowling fiercely enough to poison the dead, my dear.”

Fleur looked fully at Andromeda, somewhat aghast at the statement. “I hadn’t realized, my apologies.”

Andromeda continued to look at her for a moment before continuing towards Harry and the children, speaking as she did so. “There’s no need to apologize to me, Fleur. But I must confess, I am curious just who or what could put such an expression on your face.”

“It was nothing.”

Andromeda gave her a flat, piercing look at that, and Fleur seemed to wither under her gaze. 

“I thought I saw a former colleague.”

“They must not have been pleasant to work with.”

“I thought it was Charles Bassett.” Fleur admitted.

Andromeda paused and looked at her before moving on. “I see.” A moment passed before she spoke again, “Would this be the same mister Bassett that almost killed your entire department three months ago?”

Fleur grimaced, looking ahead to see where Harry and the children had gotten to as she spoke. “Actually he almost killed the entire French Ministry, and yes, the very same.”

“Ah. That would certainly explain your expression.” 

A somewhat awkward silence fell between them then, and it did not lift until they found Harry and the children again in front of Madam Antoinette’s Confectionery. Fleur let out a slight groan knowing that Harry would have caved the instant the three of them asked for a sweet treat from the store. Andromeda let out a chuckle and Fleur shook her head ruefully. 

“At least that answers the question of where the children are.”

“And Harry,” added Fleur.

Andromeda sent a glance her way, “Given that he is just as awed by the sweets as the others are, I would say he falls into the same category in this instance.”

Fleur let out a slight snort and nodded, “True enough. Well, if we are here then we may as well get something.”

Andromeda affected a put upon sigh and nodded, “If we must.” The effect was rather ruined by a smirk barely visible as it curled the corner of her mouth. 

“Yes, we must.”

“Well, if we are to get something then what do you recommend?”

“The meringues are always good,” Fleur answered, “but I have found them to be a tad cloying. I often get the religieuse, or else the clafoutis if they are out.”

Andromeda gave her an appreciative nod and stepped forward to order a religieuse, making way for Harry to step back towards her as she did so. Harry took one look at her face and his own expression morphed into one of slight concern.

“Are you alright Fleur?” The question was asked at a whisper, and Fleur could not help but marvel at Harry’s seemingly supernatural ability to tell when she had been even the slightest bit upset. 

“It is nothing, I will tell you later.” She gave Harry a beatific smile and he nodded, relaxing as he moved back to where Isabelle was determinedly hopping up and down, trying and failing to peek over the counter. Harry swooped down and picked her up in one fluid motion, Isabelle’s eep of surprise turning into a delighted laugh as she was settled firmly onto Harry’s shoulders where she could see into the back of the store with ease.

\----------------------

The rushing warmth of the floo surrounded Fleur as she stepped out of the parlour fireplace, a quick sidestep carried her out of the way as Harry appeared right behind her. Stumbling slightly, he had yet to master exiting the fireplace even after well over a decade of experience, and soon to follow behind him were Teddy, Isabelle, and James with Andromeda bringing up the rear. A flick of Harry’s wand sent shrunken packages flying from his pockets and onto the sofa where they began to sort themselves into three separate piles.

“I’ll get the parcels sorted and stowed,” said Harry, “Fleur, would you get Andromeda and Teddy settled in?”

Fleur gave Harry a quick nod and gestured Andromeda and Teddy to follow her, as the trio walked into the hall that ran the length of the house they heard Harry’s voice emanating from the parlour behind them. 

“All right you two, who wants to help me put these up on the tall shelves in the cellar?”

The sound of James and Isabelle’s excited assent followed them as they walked down the long hall. As they reached the end of the corridor they approached two plain doors on either side, the one on the left, and beside the door into Fleur and Harry’s own room, opened to reveal a second master bedroom. Andromeda gave Fleur a nod and pleasant smile as she glided past her and into the room. Turning, Fleur opened the door to the room Teddy used whenever he visited, it was considerably smaller than Andromeda’s, equal in size to the two other rooms on that side of the hallway, James and Isabelle’s respectively.

Teddy flashed her a quick, bright smile and ran into the room before flopping onto the bed with a leap. Fleur let out a chuckle as she followed Teddy in, setting on the edge of his bed as Teddy rolled over to look up at the silver ceiling painted with countless pale flecks of whites, purples, reds, yellows and blues. The lifelike constellations across the ceiling held Teddy’s gaze for a moment before he sat up and turned to face Fleur fully with a smile. Fleur arched an eyebrow at him expectantly before he gave a small gasp of realization and shoved his hand into his pocket to extract a lumpy shrunken, canvas bag.

Teddy held the bag out expectantly and Fleur tapped it with her wand removing the reduction and featherweight charms on it in the process. Teddy grunted slightly as the suddenly heavy bag bobbed in his hand as it grew, and in moments he was clutching the rucksack in both hands as he fumbled with the drawstring. Once open Teddy shoved a hand inside and was about to begin pulling things out when he froze, and then looked hopefully up at Fleur. She let out a put upon sigh and gave him an indulgent smile before standing and gesturing to him to do the same. Teddy leapt off the bed and watched grinning as Fleur waved her wand in a broad circle starting just above the rucksack. Within moments the contents of the bag were soaring through the air, spinning around them as if held aloft by a silent hurricane. They spun and weaved through the air, twisting and turning to Teddy’s delight as they swooped from the bag and into drawers and onto shelves scattered about the room.

Teddy turned to Fleur with a beaming smile plastered over his face before pausing at the sight of a pair of swimming trunks slipping into a drawer, he turned back to Fleur with an excited expression and spoke with a pleading voice, “Aunt Fleur, can we go down to the beach?”

The light in Fleur’s eyes dimmed a bit even as she kept up her smile so Teddy wouldn’t see the change. “We will have to ask your grandmother and godfather, so run and get Andromeda while I go and find Harry.”

Teddy gave an eager nod and Fleur kept the smile on her face as he ran out of his room and into the one across the hall. She knew that Andromeda would say yes eventually, but would want to have some time to settle in first. Teddy would want to go immediately and would wear her down into acquiescing on the condition that Fleur and Harry agreed. 

Fleur walked pensively from Teddy’s room and past Andromeda’s door, hearing a faint snatch of conversation from just beyond as Teddy made his best appeal. In some ways it was foolish, but Harry and Fleur had not been able to bring themselves to take their children down to the beach since James’ accident three months ago. They had contemplated it, and even planned to do so, but had never acted on their plans. 

Her feet carried her down the kitchen stairs from which she could faintly hear Harry’s voice echoing alongside the quieter sounds of James and Isabelle’s animated speech. She rounded the corner into the cellar area of the kitchen, seeing Harry working with the two children to place their earlier purchases onto the shelves. The sound of Fleur’s footsteps interrupted them and as one the three of them turned to look at her. Their heads tilted slightly to the right as if in question, a habit Harry said he picked up from his owl and first friend Hedwig, and something he had passed along to their children.

“James, Isabelle, how about you two go and find Teddy and ask him what he wants to do today.” Fleur knelt down to their level, a warm smile on her face as she spoke. Isabelle’s eyes widened and James nodded his head emphatically at the suggestion. The two sprinted off around the corner to the stairs as Fleur rose again to stand up straight, calling after them as they ran. “And do not run inside!” She was rewarded by a slight slowing of their pounding footsteps as the children began to speed walk through the hallway to Teddy’s room.

Fleur turned back to meet Harry’s questioning look and sighed, an uncomfortable expression overtaking her features. “Teddy asked to go down to the beach.”

Understanding bloomed in Harry’s eyes and he too gained a perturbed expression. He seemed to grapple with something inside himself for a moment before he sighed and nodded. “Of course he would, we live on the shore after all.” Harry paused a moment and looked up at the ceiling before continuing, “We’d have to deal with it eventually I suppose, now is as good a time as any.”

Fleur nodded calmly, although her insides twisted with a spike of nervousness. “They will not be going on the rocks.”

“No,” agreed Harry, “and we’ll have our eyes on them the whole time.”

Harry led the way back up to the dining room where they found Andromeda at the head of the trio of children, a long-suffering expression on her face as the two boys and girl looked hopefully up at them from around and behind the tall woman.

“The children would like to go down to the shore to swim in the shallows. I said it was fine with me so long as you agreed.”

Fleur hesitated for barely an instant before answering, “Of course it’s fine andromeda.” Then, turning to the now excited children, “Come on you three, go get your swimming things on.” The three of them turned and sprinted down the hall to get dressed, and the admonition to walk seemed to die in Fleur’s throat. She turned to find Andromeda staring intently at her, alternating between her and Harry with her piercing gaze. 

“You are not fully alright with this are you, either of you.”

Harry smiled dimly and gently shook his head, “James slipped on some boulders down by the beach three months ago, he broke his arm and nearly fell in the sea. We had to go to Saint Fiacre’s to get it fixed.”

Andromeda's eyebrows raised questioningly, “Three months, Would that happen to coincide...” Andromeda’s words fell off as she searched their features.

Fleur gave her a bitter smile in answer, “The same day.”

“Ah.” Andromeda studied them a moment longer before speaking, “You don’t have to do this you know.”

Harry was shaking his head even before she had finished speaking, “We already told them yes, and besides we needed to do it anyway.”

The look Andromeda gave them rooted Fleur to the spot, and a second later she spoke again, a strange intonation colouring her words. “I understand, and I will be sure not to let them leave my sight for a moment.”

\----------------------

Neither Teddy nor James nor Isabelle noticed the tension in Harry’s shoulders or the tightness of Fleur’s smile as they walked down the winding path to the beach. Andromeda went ahead of the group a short ways and the children were sandwiched between the adults as they moved down the long switchback path down the cliffside. It had been old and worn when they first bought the property, but it had been stable, and the addition of enchantments and magical repairs had only made it more so. As they reached the bottom of the walkway Harry gathered the three children together and laid out the rules for their time by the water. 

“Remember, all three of you, you have to stay where we can see you, you have to stay where your head can poke out of the water while you’re standing on the bottom, and under no circumstances can you go on the rocks.”

Harry’s short speech seemed to energize the three of them rather than curb their enthusiasm, and they were nearly vibrating out of their swimwear by the time it was concluded. Fleur and Harry watched with trepidation as the three of them tore off towards the water, Andromeda watching them like a hawk at their side.

“If anything goes wrong the three of us will be right here,” said Andromeda, “and we can always use the summoning charm if they start getting swept out to sea.”

Harry and Fleur glanced over at Andromeda at that, somewhat surprised by her words. Andromeda gave a little shrug and a small, almost mischievous smile. “Nymphadora was just as clumsy when she was little as when she was full-grown, and while the summoning charm may lead to scrapes and bruises on dry land, there isn’t nearly as much risk when the children are in the water.” 

Harry nodded at that while Fleur just shook her head in slight bewilderment, an image of a young Tonks crossing her arms in irritation as she skipped backwards across the surf towards the shore playing through her mind.

After that exchange, the three of them set out towards the edge of the water and took up positions where they could see the children with ease. Harry conjured simple wooden beach chairs and white cloth umbrellas for the three of them, and they sat down and watched Teddy, James, and Isabelle splash around through the waves. 

It had been a little before noon when they walked down to the shore, and for two hours Harry and Fleur, along with Andromeda, watched Teddy, James, and Isabelle play in the surf. In that time the three children had played a wide variety of games, ranging from underwater tag, to Marco Polo, to building sand castles and comparing the viability of their defences against a siege of militant crabs. The last of their games had admittedly confused the three adults, as they had no idea where James had even heard of the fortifying value of machicolations, nor where Teddy had learned of the complex strategies open to creatures with ten limbs. Although they were still bemusedly proud of Isabelle’s non-violent solution that involved a diplomatic union between her sandcastle and the militant crab army, as evidenced by the tiny crustacean sitting in her cupped hands. 

Pride that turned to exasperation as Isabelle announced that, since she had the strongest military and best fortifications, she should obviously be the one to rule all three sandcastles. Their exasperation turned to slight alarm as Isabelle's decapod legion turned out to be entirely real, as a small swarm of tiny crabs popped out of the sand and began crawling all over Teddy’s and James’ sandcastles, entranced by what the three adults assumed was an accidental compulsion charm. Their alarm faded once they realised the tiny creatures couldn’t actually harm the children, and turned back to amusement as James and Teddy, delighted by the sudden turn of events, took up the plastic buckets and shovels that Fleur had conjured for them at the start of their sandcastle building game and began fighting back the invaders with clumps of sand and splashes of water.

By the time three o’clock had rolled around the children were utterly exhausted, and Harry and Fleur’s anxiety had long since faded. They watched with a fond gaze as James and Isabelle ganged up on Teddy and dunked him under the waves, and Andromeda gave a quiet laugh as Teddy yawned midway through hoisting Isabelle into the air to drop back into the water. Seeing this, and also checking the stars circling around the battered gold watch on his wrist, Harry stood up and called out to the three children in the water, smiling as they froze in place mid dunk. 

“Come on you three, it’s time to head back up.”

His words were met by a chorus of groans and protestations, and more than one shout of, “But we’re not tired!”, although the effectiveness of that particular plea was rather ruined by the gaping yawn that interrupted Isabelle halfway through saying it. 

“Of course you’re not tired, but” and at this Harry winked knowingly, “You are hungry.” 

The mention of hunger seemed to make all three of them instantly aware of how ravenous they were, and within moments Teddy, James, and Isabelle were scrambling over each other to get out of the water as quickly as possible. Andromeda and Fleur stood up as they approached, and with two deft waves of Andromeda’s wand the three children were clean and dry. Seeing that they were no longer wet, Teddy took one look at James before shouting out, “Last one to the house is a Nargle!” and sprinting off back up the path at full speed. James and Isabelle followed close behind, shouts that he hadn’t started properly falling on deaf ears as the son of Remus and Nymphadora stumbled around a corner and used his new position lying on the ground to catapult himself up even faster than before.

With a rueful shake of his head, Harry set off after them, a light jog letting him keep them in his sight as the exhausted children rapidly began to slow in their race up the cliff. Andromeda and Fleur were quick to follow, and Fleur couldn’t help but feel a bit foolish at how much she had been dreading coming here in the first place.

\----------------------

The rest of the day passed in a pleasant blur, and it wasn’t long before the six of them were sitting contentedly at the dining room table, quietly digesting a delicious supper of braised lamb. Fleur felt particularly sluggish as such heavy meals were rather uncommon. They were always delicious, but Harry kept them few and far between as he didn’t want his children to fall prey to the same gluttony that had taken his uncle and nearly consumed his cousin before he had gotten into boxing. The stray thought of Dudley Dursley sent a gentle frown across Fleur’s sleepy features. She had only met him once, when Harry’s cousin had tracked Harry down a short while after James’ had been born. She still wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed it, but one day Harry had gotten a letter from his cousin begging to meet, and even more astonishingly the letter had convinced Harry to do so. 

It had been the strangest day of Fleur’s life, she had never before seen the coldly neutral expression Harry wore when meeting with Dudley, nor had she ever seen someone look at her husband with such a confusing mixture of determination and shame. Not only that, but Dudley looked nothing like Harry had described. Close-cropped blond hair, weary blue eyes, and rounded but still muscular physique. He had confused even Harry when the first words out of his lips were what sounded like a disjointed apology, and had blushed crimson when Harry asked for clarification. He had come to apologize for everything he had done to Harry as a child, saying that he had arrived at some disquieting conclusions after Harry saved his life and then happily saw him off never to return. Harry had searched his cousin’s eyes for a full minute before sighing and saying that he forgave Dudley, but that he hoped Dudley wouldn’t mind if he never saw him again. Dudley had looked astonished at Harry’s words, and hastily agreed before all but running out of their house. 

A grunt sounded from across the table and Fleur shook off the bewildering memory of Dudley’s apology and focused her eyes on Harry as he stood up from his place next to her at the head of the table. With a flick of his wand the plates and dishes on the table rose into the air and formed up behind him, and with another, the leftover lamb still on the table rose and began floating down the stairs to the kitchen. 

“Alright you three, time for bed.” Harry’s words were met with a sleepy nod from Isabelle, an uncomfortable groan from James, who had eaten a bit too much, and thunk from Teddy as he dropped his forehead against the table.

“I’ll get them”, said Andromeda, and she stood up and began making her way over to where Teddy remained with his face glued to the wood in front of him. 

Fleur rose and mimicked Harry’s motions towards the leftover lamb, levitating the remaining sides with a wave of her wand and following Harry down the stairs into the kitchen. A minute or two passed in contented silence as the pair busied themselves with cleaning up after dinner. When they were done with that task Harry draped a drying towel over his shoulders and leaned back against the countertop, looking pensively in Fleur’s direction. 

“What was it that bothered you this morning, outside Madame Antoinette’s?”

Fleur felt a spark of old anger flare up in her chest at the thought of it, and sighed wearily. “It is nothing. I thought I saw Charles in the alley, that is all.”

Harry’s gaze pierced Fleur like an arrow as he spoke, “If it affected you so strongly then it isn’t nothing.” 

Fleur pursed her lips and turned away from Harry, a feeling of annoyance beginning to take hold within her. “So it affected me, what of it? Am I not allowed to be angry at the man that almost killed the entire government of magical France?”

“Except you’re not just angry are you, you hate him.”

“And if I do?”

Fleur felt a warm hand on her shoulder, and another on her chin gently turning her face to look back towards her husband. What she saw there was enough to make the building annoyance sputter and die within her. He was compassionate, but more than that, he was sad. 

“There’s nothing wrong with despising his actions,” Harry said, “nothing wrong with keeping him in contempt, but there isn’t a single bad person in the world that’s worth the cost of hating them.”

\----------------------

Fleur Potter couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t one to toss and turn, and Harry’s arms around her would be enough to prevent the notion even if she was, but still she lay there unable to get a wink. She was comfortable, incredibly so, her body felt like so much water in a puddle, and puddles are incapable of movement, but she still couldn’t sleep. She lay there, staring at the clock over the door ticking closer to one AM, stubbornly awake. She wanted to sleep, wanted to stop her mind running round in circles, wanted her thoughts to become just as puddle-like as her body, but it wouldn’t come. Over and over again her mind repeated the conversation she had with Harry in the kitchen a few hours ago, and no matter how much she rationalized it she couldn’t arrive at a satisfactory answer.

Fleur Potter hated Charles Bassett.

She hated him, he had almost killed everyone Fleur knew. He had, in his arrogance, endangered the lives of over five thousand people working at the Ministry of Magical Affairs, and she hated him for it. She hated that he had recreated something that had caused so much destruction and pain, something so vile that the very world around it screamed any time it was used. She hated that he had given her the chance to undo her mistake from all those years ago, and she hated that she was secretly glad that he’d done so. Tomorrow was the day they were celebrating Harry’s birthday. His actual birthday wasn’t until the following Tuesday, the thirty first, but tomorrow was the best day for the celebration because of the number of people that would have to take time off from work otherwise. Fleur Potter hated that her hatred of Charles was affecting what should have been a purely happy occasion, that Harry had to spare even a single thought from the time he was spending with his godson to look after her. Harry deserved so much better than that. 

It had always been a secret insecurity of hers, one that Harry had long since surmised even if she never told him, that Harry deserved better than her. It had been strongest in the war, when Harry was fighting toe to toe with murderers and madmen, and had made time to love and cherish her in their budding relationship even when she couldn’t be there for him in return. He had helped put her back together after the incident in Leenane on the north coast, the first time she had encountered the runic array created by the mad scholar Edward Snyde, and later re-created by the arrogant scholar Charles Bassett. She had been a ruin then, she wasn’t a fighter but had wanted to fight in the war anyway, and so aided in the only way she could by using her skill with enchantments, wards, and runes. She had failed at that on the coast of the north sea. 

Harry had picked up the pieces of her even while he shouldered every other burden as well. She had fallen in love with him, and he her, but throughout the war it was clear that she received far more than she gave. In her best moments, she accepted that Harry seemed to possess an infinite well of compassion and generosity and that she didn’t have to match him for it, only to give of herself what she could. In her worst moments, she thought of herself as a weight pulling Harry down, a foolish scholar with no place in a war attached to its greatest general, dragging on him like a chain.

She had almost been relieved when the war ended and Harry’s well ran dry, she had hated herself for that too. He had been so steadfast and resolute throughout the war, but when it was over, and everyone else returned to the lives they had before the fighting started, Harry found he had no life to go back to. He fell, and Fleur was able to put him back together like he had done for her. Even then she felt as though she was not equal to the task, and it wasn’t until she brought him away to France to look for a new home, not until he saw the lonely house on their cliff by the sea, that he came to life again. Out of Britain and into a new life, Harry had begun to return to her, and she had guided him back to himself. Still, it wasn’t until she held her son in her arms and offered him to his awestruck father for the first time that she was really, truly sure that she was good enough for Harry.

Years had passed, and she gave Harry another child, a daughter, as well as accepted Harry’s godson into her life like he was her own, but the old insecurities had begun to creep back in. Never when she was with him or her children, and always on late nights hunched over a desk, reaching the end of some fascinating new theory when the clock struck midnight and Fleur looked up with a start to realize that she was the only one left in the office, and had missed the incredible dinner Harry had no doubt cooked by hours, hours in which not a single thought of her family had entered her head. It had been made all the worse by the incident three months ago, their anniversary dinner had been shaken by James’ injury, and that was alright because both of them valued their children infinitely more than themselves, but then her work had pulled her from Harry after it was over. Charles' arrogance had pulled her from Harry’s side and back into her work, and when she came home after one in the morning, exhausted, she looked out the glass door of the terrace to see the dishes that would have been for the anniversary dinner she had missed. She had broken down, and for the first time voiced the fear that had plagued her for years, and Harry had comforted her as only he could. 

For once, it wasn’t her own failings that took her away from Harry when she should have been at his side, that time it had been the actions of Charles Bassett, and she hated him for that too.

Fleur Potter hated Charles Bassett, and Harry had said no one was worth the cost of hating. She knew he meant his words, believed them with every fibre of his being. He had taught them to their children and to Teddy, and he had taught them to Wizarding Britain after the war and even during it, and he acted them out in his own life. He had mourned the loss of potential in the war, the lives un-lived for both the light and the dark, and had forgiven those few servants of Voldemort that he knew to be truly remorseful. He had even forgiven his cousin Dudley, the bully and cheat, the symbol of the Dursleys’ mistreatment of him, and Fleur knew that even though he couldn’t stand to see Dudley that he had sent a pleasant card to his cousin at his wedding, and sent birthday and Christmas cards to Dudley’s daughter every year. 

Harry would have forgiven Charles Bassett, Harry would have forgiven himself. 

Fleur Potter closed her eyes and forced her mind to still, thinking of nothing, imagining an all-consuming void that filled her thoughts, and it did. The racing of her mind slowed, and her ears dimly registered the soft chime of the clock ringing out one in the morning as she drifted off to sleep.

\----------------------


	3. Chapter 3

Fleur was dreaming, in her dream, she was walking atop the ramparts of Hogwarts, Harry by her side. It was late August in the final year of the war, her birthday. She was turning twenty-one, and though Harry was only eighteen it still felt like he was older than her sometimes, although his actual age showed whenever she rendered him speechless with a kiss. Time moved strangely in her dream, one moment they were at the beginning of the rampart, the next they were halfway along its length, and the next they caught each other stealing glances at the same time, and the moment lasted for hours in her dream. It had been the strangest birthday she’d ever known, all around her was chaos and fear, but there had been a lull in the fighting and Harry, her Harry spent the entire day by her side, relishing the calm while it lasted. He turned to speak to her, and Fleur remembered the words he had said, waiting for them to fall from his lips. 

“Breakfast!” 

Fleur’s confusion would have been palpable if the dream version of Harry was real, but she didn’t get to express it as a small body slammed into her side a second later and pulled her from sleep fully. 

Little Isabelle was laying across hers and Harry’s bellies, stretched out across both of them and smiling up at them from ear to ear. Harry’s fumbling grunt of confusion came from Fleur’s side as she tried to calm her own racing heart, both of them startled awake in a fashion that hadn’t happened in years. 

“Isabelle Potter, I said to wake them up not to jump around all over them.” 

Andromeda’s voice sounded from somewhere near the entrance to their room and Fleur looked over to see the formidable woman standing in the doorway with her arms crossed in disapproval. Isabelle shrank a bit under the woman’s gaze and muttered a barely distinguishable apology. Andromeda shook her head and let out a huff before speaking.

“No matter, you woke them regardless. Come on you two, we don’t want it getting cold.”

The latter half of Andromeda’s statement was elucidated when, a moment later, Teddy and James came in guiding massive floating trays covered with all manner of breakfast food. Fleur heard a small intake of breath from beside her and looked over to see Harry with a delighted expression on his face as the two of them were surprised with breakfast in bed. 

“What’s all this?”

“Well, Harry, when I put the three of them to bed last night Teddy had the idea to surprise the two of you with a nice breakfast and a lie-in.” 

Andromeda’s response to Harry’s question came with a smile and an appreciative glance at her grandson, who beamed proudly up at Harry. 

“Er, I may have had to hit you with a light sleeping charm to ensure the lie in part, I know you are an early riser.” 

The second, sheepish part of Andromeda’s answer caused Harry to chuckle and shake his head ruefully.

“You’d be right about that, I’m normally up far sooner than, er, what time is it exactly?”

Fleur glanced over at the clock on the wall and answered, “A little after nine.” Harry nodded at that and turned back to Andromeda, and the three children waiting around impatiently. 

“All right you three, show me what you’ve got.”

What followed was a cacophony of noise as all three tried to tell Harry about what they’d helped make, and in the chaos, Fleur exchanged a glance with Andromeda. While Harry was sorting out who made what Fleur picked up her wand from the bedside table and gave it a luxurious wave in the direction of the forgotten food trays causing them to float over to the bed where Fleur and Harry still remained. Meanwhile, Andromeda conjured a simple white cloth to cover their bed and catch any crumbs or spills, and also levitated a dressing robe each for Harry and Fleur, who put them on like jackets and sat up out of the covers to address their audience properly. 

“Jamie burned the toast so we had to make more, and then I squeezed the juice!”

Fleur smiled and Harry chuckled at James’ red-faced denial of burning the toast, while Isabelle ploughed on heedless of her brother's sputters.

“And Teddy made the pancakes-”

“I even mixed the batter!”

“-and grandma Andy made the bacon, cause she said we couldn’t go near the hot grease, and James cut up all the fruit-”

“I got all the best ones!”

“-and I got to sort the tomatoes while grandma chopped them up!” 

Harry smiled down at the tray in his lap as Isabelle finished her excited recounting, and Fleur could see that his eyes were more than a little wet behind his glasses. 

“Thank you, all three of you. This is the best birthday morning I’ve ever had.” Harry’s words, and the incredibly sincere tone they were delivered in, caused all three children to still and smile up at them, identical blushes covering their faces. 

“Now come on, Your Maman and I can’t eat all this by ourselves.”

The three children nodded eagerly and looked around for somewhere to sit, discovering the tall chairs that Andromeda had conjured during their explanation, along with the small tables next to each one. And as Fleur and Harry dug into some honestly very good food, she couldn’t help but think that Harry was right. This was the best birthday morning she’d ever experienced, even if it wasn’t her own.

~----------------------~

Two hours later found Fleur, Harry, and Andromeda, along with the three children, getting ready to depart for Place Cachée and the Paris branch of Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes found within. It was a tradition they had had for years, ever since the Weasley twins had dragged Harry into their shop on his first birthday after the war, when Harry had been at the lowest point of his spiral, and managed to distract him with Fleur’s help for the entire day by showing him all the strange and fascinating things they were working on. 

That day had also sparked a rather odd professional relationship between her and the twins, as they had realized quickly that she knew what they were talking about when they described their design methods, and even exceeded their expertise in select areas. From then on she had been engaged in idle correspondence with the two tricksters, and had helped them develop a fair number of their more complicated products. She had at first had some slight concerns about them including her in business matters when she wasn’t part of their operation, and when she raised these with them they had merely looked at her as if she’d grown a second head and told her to ask Harry where they got their initial investment from. It was strange that she and Harry were at that point engaged to be married and yet the topic of Harry’s financial assets had just never come up, but when she asked him he revealed that he was the sole investor in Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes and owned forty percent of the company. The twins owned the other sixty percent and had all but forced the partnership onto Harry when he refused their attempts to pay him back his start up loan, saying that he was lucky they weren’t making him an equal partner and to be thankful he wouldn’t have to make any decisions regarding the company. 

All that to say that the twins’ joke shop held a special place in Harry’s heart, and that since the twins had announced the opening of their French-themed Paris branch on James’s fifth birthday they had been going there every chance they could.

“I can’t find my trainers!”

Teddy’s voice cut through Fleur’s musings as she sat in their small parlour waiting for the time when they would step through the fireplace and out into Place Cachée. She shook her head in fond amusement as Andromeda’s exasperated response of, “You have only been here for one day.” drifted in from the central corridor that ran the length of the building. 

Harry chuckled from where he sat next to her, reading through a muggle food magazine that he had subscribed to last fall as James’ and Teddy ran around doing their best to complete their last minute preparations for the day out. Isabelle giggled as well, more because Harry was chuckling than because she found anything actually funny, and returned to her colouring book at the same time that Harry returned to his magazine. Fleur looked over at Isabelle’s book with a small smile playing across her features, it was filled with dragons, another in the same series that Charlie Weasley had bought for James more than a year ago, and from the same source. Isabelle had gotten a hold of Jame’s colouring book a few months ago and was enraptured by the dragons inside, demanding one of her own from Charlie Weasley when he visited them a few weeks later.

From what little she could see the dragon Isabelle was currently colouring in was an Antipodean Opaleye, a particularly beautiful dragon breed known for their soft white scales that shimmered with iridescent light. At least, Fleur thought that’s what Isabelle was colouring, she had never paid too much attention in care of magical creatures on account of how her professor seemed to regard her in much the same way as his subject matter due to her heritage, and as for dragons in particular, she had had enough of them for a lifetime in the triwizard tournament. Her futile attempts to recall the visual differences between Antipodean Opaleyes and Indonesian Silverfangs were interrupted by the sound of thundering feet as Teddy and James came running into the parlour with Andromeda close behind.

“I believe these two are finally ready,” Andromeda said longsufferingly.

Harry had folded his magazine when the boys entered and rose to his feet at Andromeda’s words.

“Alright then, best be off. Come on Isabelle, you can keep working on your dragons later.”

Isabelle looked brightly up at Harry and leapt to her feet, the colouring book forgotten on the carpet at her feet.

“Ok, Papa.”

Harry strode forward and reached into the small flowerpot they kept on the mantelpiece and drew out a fistful of floo powder, tossing it into the empty grate he clearly spoke out, “Place Cachée,” as he strode into the flames and vanished. Fleur went next, and the warm green flames licked across her body tickled pleasantly across her scalp as she spun past the innumerable grates before finally slowing and striding elegantly out of one the fireplaces that lined the walls of the entry courtyard into the magical shopping district. The three children and Andromeda soon followed, and in short order, they were all standing side by side in the alley taking stock of themselves before setting off on their journey to Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes.

That Sunday was a bright, clear, and relatively cool day. The sun shone down and warmed everything it touched while relieving shadows flitted about creating a pleasant mix of warm light and cool air, a breeze was channelled down the alley by the shape of the buildings and ruffled Fleur’s silver hair as she set off down the street towards their destination. It was a perfect day. Of course, being a perfect day, that meant that the alley was packed to bursting with shoppers and merchants going about their business and selling wares. 

The three children, despite having been to the alley many times before, seemed to overflow with excitement as they pointed this way and that at whatever new thing had caught their eye. Even with their boisterousness, however, the three adults had no trouble keeping track of them. With Harry at the front projecting an aura of such absolute confidence in his own being that other people had to step aside to make room, and with the formidable figures of Andromeda and Fleur taking up the rear, they moved through the crowd in their own personal bubble as the people parted before them. 

“Maman, Maman! Look at that!” Isabelle’s voice and tugging hand brought Fleur’s gaze around to look at an oddities shop on one side of the alley, the Shopkeeper had set up an awning in front of the store to capitalize on the weather, and small tables laden with all manner of curiosities caught the attention of passersby. Although those were not what had attracted Isabelle’s gaze, and her excited eyes were fixed on a shimmering golden dragon that swirled through the air over the store, created from a substance that was rather like a bubble in appearance, but that had entirely too many sharp points and angles to match the dragon’s shape for it to be made of soap. 

Fleur actually slowed a bit to appreciate the display, and she privately agreed with her daughter’s assessment of it, though for very different reasons. Fleur was appreciating the technical skill that went into creating such a display, and doing so in such a manner that did not require the caster’s continuous attention, while Isabelle just liked dragons.

“It is very nice, but we must hurry or we will be left behind.”

With that, Fleur quickened her pace slightly from where she and Isabelle had fallen slightly behind the others and came up alongside them as they continued along the shopping district. Wonders seemed to pop out at them from every turn, and by the time they reached the main square a short ways from the entry point, it had become clear that the various merchants of Place Cachée were capitalizing fully on the uncommonly good conditions to drive up their revenue. And not just merchants, as a pair of performers in masks of Reynard the fox and the wolf Isengrim were putting on a show in the square, they held musical instruments and were acting out a light-hearted poem as they sang to the delight of their audience. Reynard the fox had just barely escaped the clutches of the wolf his uncle once again when Harry managed to find them a path through the appreciative crowd and onto the broadest side street off of the square. 

Ahead of them loomed the jovial facade of Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes, a pair of large statues of the twins dominated the entrance as they stood on either side of the door, they were done in a caricature style and wore their standard dragonhide suits of purple with orange accents, although each of the statues also had a medieval jesters cap atop their heads, done in the classical french style. On either side of the door were what looked like little fenced-off gardens that were filled with tiny animated figures. Characters from folktales and childrens stories ran around and acted out their roles in an elaborate display, all the while enticing shoppers to enter and see more. Whether by design or not Fleur wasn’t sure, but the small displays also tended to attract fairies who took up residence in the tiny model houses, something that only added to the fairytale-like atmosphere the Paris branch of WWW cultivated. 

Even with such a large crowd gathered in the main square of the magical district, there was still a sizable throng going in and out of the twins’ shop, and Fleur had to dodge around a young couple walking out of the store to tap Teddy on the shoulder from where he had been crouching down to watch a miniature yellow dwarf chasing a princess, a task made all the more difficult by the giant plush Tarasque that was sitting on the boy’s head like a hat. 

Finally, Andromeda managed to round up the three children and they made their way into Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes. The shop was packed with customers, although the layout made it a bit easier to move than the London store. A teenage girl who was working the till glanced up at their entry and her eyes widened in recognition. She finished her exchange as quickly as she could and pulled out a notepad which she scribbled on for a moment before tapping with her wand. The bright orange paper rose up from the pad and formed into the shape of a lobster with its antennae in the shape of a W, the lobster began swimming through the air in a perfect breaststroke as it disappeared into a backroom and out of sight. Meanwhile, Teddy, James, and Isabelle were itching to go look at all the cool items on display, Andromeda gave Harry and Fleur a small smile and a quick nod, and began guiding the three children over to a nearby display that Isabelle was pulling them towards. The display, rather predictably, featured a giant chocolate dragon as its centrepiece.

Turning away from Andromeda and the children, Fleur walked over to where Harry was standing by a rack of what appeared to be board games. As she walked she saw a flash of fiery hair out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Fred Weasley poking his head out of the same backroom the olympic swimming paper lobster had flown into a few moments before. He scanned the room for a moment before his eyes alighted on Fleur’s own distinctive hair and a wide smile spread across his face. Fleur tapped Harry on the shoulder and he turned around questioningly before spotting Fred and smiling just as widely as the other man. Fred strode over to them with arms held open wide and as soon as reached them he laid one arm on each of their shoulders, grinning like a loon. 

“Hello there Harriekins, and hello there Fleuriekins, what brings you to my fine establishment today.”

It was a little game that the twins and Harry played whenever he and Fleur would come to visit, whichever twin was present would ask what they were looking for, Harry would respond with something incredibly outlandish, and the twins would answer in turn by pulling something that exactly fit the bill out of seemingly nowhere. So far Harry had managed to best them only twice, and both times had led to a spree of new products as the twins released a limited line of incredibly specific joke items that were amusing for their sheer uselessness if nothing else.

“Well Fred, I have a problem you see, I’ve been trying to learn to walk on my head and my ears just aren’t up to the task.”

Fred was grinning and reaching into his breast pocket just as Harry’s words seemed to catch up to him and he froze. Impossibly, his grin seemed to get even wider as he raised his hands in defeat. 

“Well Harry, that’s the third time you’ve stumped us, and you know what that means.”

Harry chuckled at the manic glint in Fred’s eye as he whipped out an identical pad of orange paper to the one sitting by the till. He scribbled a note on the top sheet and tapped it with his wand, watching as the paper detached itself and folded up into the shape of a muggle scuba diver which promptly bent itself in half at the waist and shot backwards like deranged shrimp. 

“Say Fleur, I don’t suppose you’d be interested in consulting on a method of temporarily rerouting ambulatory motor impulses from the legs into the ears would you?”

As always whenever the Weasley twins asked for assistance on one of their projects, the way Fred phrased the request was just the right mixture of technical terminology and sheer lunacy to ensure Fleur didn’t know whether to laugh or groan. In any case, she shook her head and watched as Fred’s face fell into an exaggerated look of despair before brightening up again. 

“I am sorry, but I do not have particular expertise in that area.”

“Ah well, worth a shot.” Fred gave Fleur a wry grin before turning back to Harry expectantly.

“Well, in any case, we do have a new line of products about to hit the shelves, and I was wondering if you might like a sneak peek.”

“I don’t see why not,” Harry answered, “Fleur?”

“I do not think so, I will go see what the children are up to.”

Harry nodded amiably and Fleur watched as Fred led him away, muttering and gesticulating as he began describing a series of prank sprays based on Ginny’s favourite hexes from when she was in school. 

Fleur turned around and began to scan the shop for Andromeda’s notable presence when a flash of blonde hair peeked out at her from outside a window. Something about it was familiar, and Fleur looked outside the window. There was nothing there, but just as she began to turn away she caught another glimpse of the blonde colour from the corner of her eye. Taking a moment to look round and find Andromeda and the children, they were over in a corner examining what she was fairly sure was a classic punching telescope, Fleur made her way to the door out of the shop and strode outside. She walked slowly to the edge of the crowd where she had seen the blonde hair and found nothing. After looking around dumbly for a few moments Fleur began to feel quite foolish and whirled around to head back inside the shop only to freeze in place as she came face to face with Charles Bassett.

~----------------------~

Fleur Potter felt as though she had been struck dumb. Here she was, in the middle of the street, face to face with a man she hated, and she couldn’t say a word. Every tirade, every curse, every cutting insult that had played in her head for hours on end each time she imagined this encounter seemed to have left her. She didn’t seem to be the only one, as Charles also seemed to be having difficulty speaking. After a moment of awkwardly staring at each other with wide-eyed expressions, Charles gestured off to the side of the street where there was a well lit though still somewhat secluded alcove between Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes and the quill shop next door. Numbly, Fleur walked over to the alcove, not waiting to see if Charles would follow. He seemed just as surprised as she was to see that he had, and after a moment of silence in which he seemed to be gathering his courage he finally spoke.

“Hello, Mrs Potter, I, euh, I came to apologize.”

Charles’ words were enough to spark the first real emotion she’d felt since he appeared in front of her, disbelief. Disbelief, and anger.

Seeing the expression on her face Charles ploughed on ahead, looking as though he was doing his best to get the words out as quickly as possible.

“I know that this is not an ideal time, I, euh, attempted to catch your attention yesterday but lost my nerve, although that was not an ideal time either. Actually, I don’t think any time would be, euh, but that is not important.” Charles took a deep breath and seemed to centre himself in the face of Fleur’s icy expression. “I do not expect you to forgive me, nor do I want you to.”

Whatever she had been expecting him to say, it hadn’t been that. He must have seen her confusion because he continued, his words gaining strength as they spoke.

“You saved my life, Mrs Potter, but at that moment I did not deserve saving. I am glad that you did so anyway, if only for the sake of the others present, but I certainly did not deserve it. I was an arrogant fool, Mrs Potter, and if I had died I would have deserved it on the grounds of my hubris alone. I endangered thousands of lives, possibly tens of thousands as the Ministry wards may not have been able to contain the incident, and for that I am sorry, but I am also sorry for so much more, and I owe you an apology in particular.”

As she listened to Charles speak Fleur found the smouldering fire of hatred that had burned deep within her attempt to flare up into a raging inferno at Charles' words. He didn’t deserve to be forgiven, he didn’t deserve to have the chance to make restitution for his wrongs. Yet something stopped her from slapping Charles across the face and leaving, from whipping out her hand and cursing the arrogant fool, or any of the other things she so desperately wanted to do. It wasn’t anything Charles said to be sure, rather it was the vivid image of Harry’s saddened and compassionate face as he took her chin in his hand. 

“I, euh, I didn’t know much about the Blood Wars in Britain while I was your colleague, I only learned about them as events on foreign shores as they happened, and I was disdainful of British witches and wizards because of what they had let occur. That disdain extended to your husband for a time, and the only real time I did any research into the conflict was when I stumbled across a report of a catastrophe in the Village of Leenane on the north coast of Ireland. I became obsessed with it, and arrogantly believed I could control it where Edward Snyde failed. I thought it a way to make a mark on history, the fool that I was.”

Fleur’s patience began to wear thin at Charles’ ramblings, and a snarl crossed her lips as she struggled not to snap at him, the image of Harry’s face in her mind the only thing keeping her from attacking the man in front of her. Seeing her darkening expression Charles cut off his scattered speech and centred himself once again.

“What I did was wrong in a profound way, and I don’t deserve to be forgiven for it. I don’t deserve a second chance or even the opportunity to apologize, but it isn’t about what I deserve, it’s about doing what’s right. Your husband taught me that.”

It took a moment for Charles’ words to register in Fleur’s mind, but when they did she froze in place like a statue, staring at him wide-eyed and shocked.

“Not directly,” amended Charles, “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been in the same room as him, but I learned from him anyway. After my dismissal from the DEMA, and during my recovery, I had a lot of free time on my hands and little to do with it, that’s when I came across a transcript of a speech your husband gave on the second anniversary of the war’s end, a little after you moved back to France. I read it through again and again, and it struck a chord in me. I found more speeches and read them, I learned about the Blood Wars and all that happened therein, and I have never been more ashamed. Your husband is a far greater man than I will ever be, Mrs Potter, and the truth he shared with his people in the wake of that horrible conflict made me realize the magnitude of my own errors. I deserved no forgiveness, but you deserved an apology, so I decided to try and do what was right instead of what was easy, and I have come to tell you I am sorry. I am so very, very sorry that I cannot put it into words.”

For a moment they just stood there, Charles looking as though every bit of life had been drained out of him by his words, and Fleur as tense and still as a statue.

“Leave.” It was the first word Fleur had said throughout the entire interaction, and Charles nodded wearily at her words. He turned to go but paused just before leaving the alcove, turning back one last time.

“If you hate me, I deserve it.”

With those words Charles Bassett vanished into the crowd and left Fleur Potter behind, still frozen where she stood, the silence of her thoughts ringing deafeningly in her ears.

~----------------------~

The Potter’s trip to Place Cachée lasted for a little over an hour and a half, most of which was spent at Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes, and less than a quarter of which Fleur could accurately remember. She had stumbled out of the alcove where Charles had left her a minute or more after he had vanished, and she had walked back into the store in a daze. Should have been angry, or furious, or a million other things, but what she should be feeling was entirely different from what she actually was. She didn’t know how to process what had just happened, and even if she did she couldn’t have done so in the scant few seconds between stepping out of the alcove and into the shop, so she didn’t. She spent the next hour in a haze, concealing the worst of her confusion and putting on a convincing act for the children. Harry saw through it of course, and she told him that something strange had occurred to her and she was thinking it through. He had been worried, and that had been enough to cut through her fugue and bring her back to herself a little. She spent the rest of the trip by Harry’s side, focusing on the moment and not thinking about what Charles had said. 

“Something happened when you went outside the store.”

Andromeda’s words cut through the whirl of confusion sprinting through Fleur’s head, and she blinked up at her in surprise. She was sitting in a corner of the parlour, previously lost in thought, and Andromeda was in the chair next to her. She didn’t remember her sitting down. 

“Fleur, you’ve been living in a dream ever since you walked back into the shop. Harry is worried and it is all I can do to convince him to just stay with the children and enjoy his time with them, and I know I can only manage that because you’ve told him you’re fine. What happened.”

Fleur turned away from Andromeda sitting next to her at the little table in the corner and looked out across the room. Harry, Teddy, Isabelle, and James were sitting at a table in the middle of the room, playing a board game that Fleur vaguely remembered Harry calling, ‘‘Gnomes and Burrows”. Fleur watched as Harry’s gnome, a little porcelain figurine with a bright yellow hat, was tossed back down the winding path up the ricketty cardboard building by the ghoul guarding the goalpost, he landed on a tile with a teddy bear halfway down only for the bear to turn into a fuzzy spider and knock him back another square, tying him up in webbing as it did so. The sight of Harry sitting there was enough to make Fleur’s heart ache, he was laughing at his own misfortune along with the children, but every now and then he’d glance in her direction, and his smile would dim around the eyes. It was that, more than anything, that made her speak.

“I spoke with Charles.”

She didn’t have to look at Andromeda to sense the other witches' confusion, the normally regal woman had been leaning forward to speak with her, and made a sound as if she were about to speak before Fleur’s words registered fully. 

“When you say Charles…”

“Charles Bassett, yes. The man that almost killed the entire French ministry, and a good portion of Paris as well if his own words are to be believed.”

Andromeda was silent for a whole minute, likely trying to understand why Fleur would speak to the man, and Fleur watched a whole round of play over at the table go by before she spoke again. Harry’s yellow hatted gnome had been freed and was rapidly coming up behind Teddy’s turquoise one when Andromeda’s voice reached Fleur’s ears.

“Why did you listen to him?”

The question caught Fleur off guard, she’d been expecting Andromeda to ask how Charles found her, or why Fleur gave him the time to speak at all. Why had she listened?

“I am not sure.”

But even as the words left her lips an image rose in her mind. Harry’s face, compassionate and sad.

“That is not true,” Fleur’s words cut off whatever Andromeda was going to say as she continued, “I listened to Charles because of Harry.”

“What did he say?”

“That if I hate him he deserves it, among other things.”

“Well, I suppose that is true. I just don’t see why he would seek you out to tell you that. Monsieur Bassett does not seem the type to admit to wrongdoing.”

“He wasn’t, not before, but I think he may have changed after what he did.”

“The incident.” 

Andromeda’s words were true enough, although Fleur had been thinking of Charles poring over transcriptions of Harry’s speeches when she had spoken. Harry rolled a zero on the nine-sided die and his gnome jumped into a burrow that appeared beneath it, tunnelling ahead past Teddy and James and popping back out of the cardboard just behind Isabelle, who was in the lead.

“He apologized, for everything he had done. For his arrogance, his foolishness, even for disrespecting Harry. Today was the first day he ever called me by my married name.”

Andromeda frowned at her out of the corner of her eye, and a distant part of her brain dimly wondered why.

“Did he ask for your forgiveness?” 

The tone of Andromeda’s question clearly communicated just what she thought of that particular audacity, but Fleur shook her head slowly as she responded.

“No. In fact, he quite clearly stated that he didn’t deserve to be forgiven. He gave me an apology because I deserved one, nothing more.”

“Did you forgive him anyway?”

Fleur turned to look at Andromeda properly for the first time in their entire conversation, taking in the impassive expression on her features as she answered.

“No. I hate him.” The words felt odd coming from her lips and Fleur idly ran her tongue over the roof of her mouth. Andromeda took a long time to respond, studying Fleur’s face for more than a minute before she spoke again.

“Do you want to?”

The question was just as unexpected as when Andromeda asked her why she listened, and Fleur responded without really thinking. 

“I should hate him, he deserves it.”

Andromeda’s voice was gentle as she spoke next, as if she were asking a young child and not an adult mother of two.

“But do you want to?”

Fleur turned back to look at Harry and her children, an unnamable emotion writhing through her chest at Andromeda’s words.

“There isn’t a single bad person in the world that’s worth the cost of hating them.”

Harry’s words from the night before rose in her mind of their own accord, and with them came the memories of sleepless nights and tired days, months of simmering anger sparking up any time she caught a glimpse of short blonde hair. She remembered hours spent ranting to herself, tirades refined and honed just in case she ever spoke to Charles again. Long walks along the cliff with Harry, the peace of the moment disturned by a single stray thought which led to lost senses fantasizing about cursing Charles into tearing off his own skin. Harry’s face as he realized she hadn’t registered a word he’d said in the past five minutes. Harry’s face as he found her pacing animatedly in the kitchen, practising her opening volley. Harry’s face as he watched her stare dully into an empty coffee tin before picking up a box of tea instead.

“No.”

The whispered word escaped her lips with the force of an oncoming train, and she drew in a shuddered breath at its passing.

“I don’t want to hate him anymore, but how can I not?” 

Fleur’s words sounded desperate to her own ears, and as she turned to face Andromeda the older woman’s eyes were just as sad as Harry’s had been the night before. 

“Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. If you twist it into something it was never meant to be, it can make you a doormat or an insufferable manipulator.  
Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do. But forgiving is love's power to break nature's rule.”

Andromeda’s murmur was barely audible, but it rooted her to the spot as surely as if a spear had been thrust into the earth through her side. She looked up at Fleur and gave her a watery smile.

“It’s a quote from a muggle philosopher named Lewis Smedes, Ted shared it with me years ago right after Sirius broke out of Azkaban.”

Fleur blinked at Andromeda in confusion, and she paused before continuing.

“The way Harry describes it, Sirius always thought of me as the ‘cool cousin’, and I regarded him similarly. I wasn’t particularly close to him, but I clung onto the idea of him like a lifeline. He was the one good person in my family. My older sister was insane, my younger sister apathetic and vain, but Sirius was proof that a Black could be good. And then he was sent to Azkaban for murdering thirteen people and betraying his closest friends.”

Fleur had never considered that before, she had only ever known Sirius through the Order of the Phoenix, and he had only ever spoken of Andromeda with pride and respect. The only time he ever even came close to criticising her was when he lamented her lack of active participation in the early days of the war.

“It hurt me greatly to think that Sirius could have been someone other than the person I thought he was, but I buried that hurt deep within and ignored it as best I could. I had Ted and Nymphadora, and it was easy to focus on happier things when I was with them. But then Sirius broke out, and the hurt was even worse because it had festered. That’s when Ted told me the quote for the first time.”

“But-” 

Fleur’s voice was raspy and dry, and she took a moment to swallow before speaking. 

“But I don’t love Charles, I hate him. How can I forgive him?”

Andromeda looked away from Fleur towards the centre of the room, towards Harry and the children, and took a moment to collect her thoughts before answering.

“It’s about letting go. You don’t have to love Charles, I certainly didn’t have to love Sirius, you just have to love someone.”

Fleur followed Andromeda’s gaze and found herself transfixed. There was Harry, lamenting as Isabelle won for the third time in a row. There was Isabelle, cheering with her little fists raised in the air in victory, blonde curls flying as she whirled in place. There was James, consoling himself in his third place finish by laughing at Teddy, who had rolled a nine when he was right behind Isabelle and been transported back to the start by an evil purple burrow.

“I love Harry, and I love James and Isabelle, and Teddy.”

“Not yourself?”

Fleur started and spun back to stare into Andromeda’s intense gaze.

“Not always.”

Andromeda studied her a moment longer before speaking, her words settling like a lead weight in Fleur’s belly. 

“Maybe you need to forgive yourself too.”

~----------------------~

It was nearly six o’clock, and Teddy couldn’t find his shoes. The Weasley's were expecting them soon, and as Harry watched Teddy run pell mell around the parlour trying to find where he’d stuck the bloody things he couldn’t help but feel as though it hadn’t been Arthur and Molly’s fault for being late to absolutely everything. As it had been for the past few hours, ever since she stumbled up to him in the middle of his conversation with Fred, Harry’s gaze was drawn to Fleur. She was sitting in the corner and hadn’t moved an inch since Andromeda had spoken to her during the fifth game of Gnomes and Burrows earlier in the afternoon. Harry had seen it on the shelf in the Paris branch of WWW and had been instantly transported back in time to all the stories Ron, Ginny, and the twins had told him about growing up in the rickety old home. Fleur had insisted she was fine, even though she wasn’t, and Andromeda had told him to just try and enjoy his time with Teddy. He’d been about a second away from marching over to his wife anyway when Andromeda said that it would upset Fleur even more if she caused him to lose even a second of time with his godson. Harry thought that made about as much sense as keeping a baby dragon in a wooden hut, but he’d done as she asked and stayed away. 

“For Merlin’s sake Teddy, Accio shoes.”

Andromeda’s exasperated voice cut through Harry’s anxious musings as she dressed Teddy down for losing his footwear for the second time in a day, and he looked around with a start. He wasn’t the only one either, as in addition to James’ sitting up awake on the couch with a gasp of “Didn’t do it!”, Fleur had also looked around. Harry let out an audible sigh of relief as Fleur blinked in confusion, her eyes widening as she took in the clock on the mantel. She rose to her feet, markedly more steady than she had been earlier that day, and walked over to him. Thinking quickly Harry whipped out his wand and conjured a glass floating in mid-air, he filled it with conjured water just in time for Fleur to notice it and she took it from him gratefully, drinking as if she hadn’t realized just how thirsty she was.

“Are you alright?” Harry cursed himself mentally. No, of course she wasn’t alright, she’d just spent five hours sitting in a corner not moving, practically dead to the world.

Fleur gave him a wry smile and chuckled.

“Not quite, but I am better.”

Harry nodded nervously, running a hand through his hair as he did so.

“You want to talk about it?”

Fleur hesitated for a moment and Harry began getting creative with his mental vocabulary before she responded.

“Yes, I think I do, but not now.”

“Ok. Er, what else should we do in the meantime?”

Fleur smiled again, genuine this time, and answered in a teasing voice that sounded so much closer to her normal self.

“Well, we are still expected at the Burrow by five.”

Harry felt himself blush as he realized he had entirely forgotten why it was he was standing by the fireplace while Teddy stubbornly tried to tie his shoes by the table with James and Isabelle all ready to go and napping on the couch. His embarrassment lasted just long enough for the last of Fleur’s words to penetrate his skull and he panicked at being an entire hour late before he remembered the time zones.

“Right then, er, we should get going then.”

Fleur shook her head fondly at Harry’s embarrassment, and Harry was quietly relieved that he’d forgotten what he was doing, if only because it seemed to have distracted Fleur from whatever it was that was bothering her.

“James, Isabelle, get up, it is time for us to be going.”

Their son and daughter groaned on the couch under their mother’s touch as she shook them awake where they had fallen asleep while waiting for Teddy. Speaking of Teddy, Harry looked over to find Andromeda shaking her head in exasperation as Teddy finally managed to fix the knot he had created in the laces of his trainers. Leaping up from where he had been crouching, Harry’s godson sprinted over to his side, bouncing up and down with repressed energy. 

“I’m all ready to go!”

Harry nodded at Teddy and looked back over at the couch where James and Isabelle were standing up, all tiredness forgotten at the prospect of going to the Weasley’s. Harry glanced back up at Fleur, and seeing as she looked alright he turned back to the fireplace, searching for the flowerpot on the mantelpiece. Reaching into the white glazed pot; it was a simple affair with only a single watercolour lily decorating the front, wrapped in a lavender ribbon; Harry pulled out a fistful of floo powder and, as he had done so many times before, threw it down while saying the address of the French ministry as he walked into the flames. 

Harry walked out of the silver grate and into the ministry atrium with barely a stumble, and waited for the others to arrive. With separation came anxiety, and within seconds Harry was worrying about Fleur once again. She arrived a moment later, and soon the group of three adults and three children were walking briskly along the path to the international portkey office. All the way, Harry’s mind whirled as he wondered what it was Fleur could have encountered outside Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes to affect her so strongly, and it wasn’t long before he remembered the conversation they had had the previous evening, and Harry realized that only one person could have caused her so much distress. The realization came just as Harry placed his left hand on the thick white rope floating in the middle of the departure zone, and his mind was racing with ideas all the way through the British ministry and towards the atrium. The speed of his thoughts was even enough to distract him from the mutters and whispers coming from those to either side of him and along their route through the golden gates and towards the fireplaces.

It wasn’t until green flames faded and Harry stepped out of the Weasley’s fireplace that he realized he’d not been paying any attention to where he was going, and he hurriedly stepped out of the way for Fleur who came right after him. The younger two of the four Potters appeared in Fleur’s wake, and Teddy and Andromeda soon followed. The sound of laughing voices came from outside and all three children looked up at him pleadingly.

“Alright you three, you can go.”

Isabelle hugged him fiercely around his knees before running off after her brother and Teddy, eager to see her cousins. Harry and Fleur had never made the distinction between blood relations and family of choice, and so their children probably didn’t realize that they and the Weasley's weren’t actually related. Andromeda, Harry, and Fleur followed soon after them, and Andromeda sped off in the direction of the gathered Weasley’s, Potters, and Lupin, knowing how much trouble they could cause when together. A gentle tug came on Harry's right hand, and looked down half expecting to see Isabelle standing there with a question.

But it wasn’t Isabelle’s hand on his, it was Fleur’s. Harry looked up and felt his mind still for the first time since Fleur had stood up from her seat in the corner of the parlour. His thoughts had halted in the face of the beautiful smile his wife was giving him, her eyes glimmering with a profound joy even as they watered with unshed tears. 

“Thank you, ‘Arry”

“Er, what for?”

Fleur’s beatific smile gained a tilt of wry amusement as she pulled him into an embrace, and Harry held her tight as she whispered the next words in his ear.

“For teaching me how to break nature's rule.”

For a moment they simply stood there, the sounds of laughter and of the living fields and trees washing over them as they held each other in embrace. Then Arthur’s voice drifted over to them as he called out, letting everyone know they had arrived. Fleur pulled back, took his hand in hers, and led him over to the waiting party, a contented smile dancing across her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to LTCMDR Michal Drapalik over on the Flowerpot Discord Server for beta reading this work for me.  
> Link to the Flowerpot Discord Server: https://discord.gg/c6HuytvhXw


End file.
